Magic moments

Now and again in schools we all experience a magic moment. Earlier today I had one of these. The story begins at Lunchtime yesterday when I had lunch with a couple of S1 pupils who started with us last week. Both assured me that they were enjoying High School and were settling in well. I was further pleased to learned that one of the boys, John, described Maths as his favourite subject. Seizing the opportunity I suggested to him that I would give him a maths problem to solve and, should he provide me with a written solution the following day, that i would buy him lunch. I further added that he was not allowed to use a calculator!

At lunch time today, who was waiting for me but John. John, beaming from ear to ear with a smile as wide as the Forth, proudly presented me with an envelop addressed to me, and (diplomatically) demanded that I read his solution. This I did and, to my astonishment, he provided me with the correct answer and a neatly written solution to my maths problem. At the end of his solution he had persuaded a parent to add that he had solved the problem without a calculator, precisely as I had requested. In my 28 years of teaching, I have never had a pupil who solved this particular problem. What is really interesting is that the solution he presented is not one I've seen before. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, but I feel sufficiently inspired to set up some kind of Maths problem solving club to find out how many other gifted mathematicians we have in our ranks!